Do your palms start to sweat when you think about asking for a raise? What about when you have to negotiate salary on a job offer? How do you know what salary to ask for? What are other employers paying for someone with your skills?

Most job seekers don't know the answers to these questions, making salary negotiations profoundly difficult. Some people recommend using hardball negotiating tactics, while others recommend using online salary information. Both can have disastrous consequences.

Since there are too many unknowns for most employees, I will be writing a series of posts designed to help give you a framework to better understand how compensation decisions are made. I recently spoke with compensation expert Kim Keating, the founder and managing director of Keating Advisors.

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